When Everything Is Made To Be Broken

The video made me throw my hands up and the track made me hastily use those very hands to close my ears. He did an awfully off-kilter job of that Goo Goo Dolls hit Iris. When he was not screeching he was belting out the lines and when he was doing neither, he rode across the screen or stared out of a mammoth satellite disc.

Zippy boy bands, crummy lyrics and tunes like molasses...pop days are good till they last.

Rorschach

A sneak peak into the Rorschach Test.

http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/rorschach.php

Raising high the roofbeam, Carpenters...

Random six things that make me happy-

1. Get up and discover that I still have an hour to sleep.

2. Honest music. As honest as Nights in Shining Karma.

3. Walking barefoot in drenched grass or catching sight of a butterfly balancing in
the breeze.

4. Talking to people without whom the going gets tough and Sundays when bhaiya calls

5. Finishing the sudoku before babba

6. Being ma's numero uno stress buster

Colourblind

Your Eyes Should Be Violet

Your eyes reflect: Mystery and allure What's hidden behind your eyes: A quiet passion

What Color Should Your Eyes Be?

Toothsie

Today I made a momentous discovery that I hate to be dragged out of the house at three in the afternoon. Specially if it is done to meet that dash and a dot dentist whom we will call Plopboinkgruff for obvious privacy reasons.

Plopboinkgruff's chamber is a typical oishob jaega where the receptionist stares till you fell you are some exhibitionist ready to break into hives. So you just flip through the well thumbed magazines or listen to the nauseating chatter of some precocious kid or maybe look outside the window at that sleazy celluloid poster with some imbecile of an actor smiling, as it seemed at gunpoint.

The insufferably bulimic woman hanging around his neck looked like that fabled Betaal. I am, of course talking about that guy in the poster and not Plopboinkgruff who summoned us, an hour after the appointed time. He was barking at some one when we entered and kept on barking for the next ten minutes. Finally when he had exhausted his creativity in invectives, he snarled at us.

The point is, ma's gums are bleeding. The last doc waved it off as psychological[ psychological bleeding? for Pete's sake]and she wanted a second opinion. SO Mr Plopboinkgruff tried to get to the root of the problem[ hey, if you didn't get the pun, then go back and re-read the last line] and all the while ma kept on talking about some imaginary relatives whom he had miraculously cured.

He looked as if she had just passed him free lunch baskets. The diagnosis was promptly pronounced- Vit K deficiency. He paused theatrically to notice our response aaaand then said with concentrated gravity- 'A B C D E F G H I J...K' with each letter being enunciated with an alarmingly escalating pitch. These dentists are crazy.

Yawn...

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy. You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts. People may say you're hard to read, but that's because you're so internally focused. But when you do share what you're thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Blogthings....I swear I was bored and had nothing else to do.

You Are a Chick Rocker!

You're living proof that chicks can rock You're inspired by Joan Jett and the Donnas And when you rock, you rock hard (Plus, you get all the cute guy groupies you want!)

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

Y?

Why do they kill all the cute guys?

Calvin and Hobbes

What do you do after a particularly insane conversation about dogs , drunkards and humongous lassos? But since this post has nothing to do with dogs, drunkards and lassos, humongous or otherwise you can conveniently forget about them. We'll talk about a pint sized genius, a sardonic lovable tiger, a transmongrifier, a flying time machine and the ten years of Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip created by Bill Watterson.


I don't know about you but as a kid I positively adored the newspaper. Amidst the gore, the scoreboards, crosswords and the stock market values was a page dappled with colour which the grown ups would hand down to me. Mickey grinned back from one corner while Dennis wisecracked from another. From the Garfield and Odie days I stepped up to Snoopy, Modesty Blaise and later the rather politicized Doonesbury. But if I had to chose from this morass of puns and punchlines and bell the most endearing cat in the block, it would have to be Calvin and Hobbes.



The strip ran from 1985 to 1995 and I sorely wish Watterson could come right back and sketch some more. Appearing in 24,000 newspapers worldwide and boasting of more than 30 million sold copies of the Calvin and Hobbes books, the strip almost instantly attracted popular imagination.





This one is the first strip featuring the rambunctious kid in striped red shirt. The namesake of the sixteenth century theologist John Calvin, this six year old is ingenious, curious, pixilated and outlandishly creative. Hobbes[ nomenclature from the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes] is for sidekicks, an accomplice in Calvin's imaginative escapades who swings between the extremes of being a stuffed tiger and a full grown arthropomorphic feline friend. If this schism bothers you, I suggest you read what the creator has to say about his work-

"When Hobbes is a stuffed toy in one panel and alive in the next, I'm juxtaposing the 'grown-up' version of reality with Calvin's version, and inviting the reader to decide which is truer...".


This is a medley of few of my personal favorites that I could ferret out through a google search.


This one killed me[I could not find the other Einstein strip where the kiddo says- "You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!"] What's rib tickling is the adorable way he goes around challenging established ideas, not genuflecting to theories and not letting textbooks think for him.




didn't think I would get lucky with this strip. I actually read it years back on some jhalmuri packet[btw, what do you call a thonga in English?] and was glad to rediscover it. See that grown-ups-can-be-so-stupid look on Calvin's face?



I could morph Calvin's face with mine. No further comments.


Will the victims of parental shrewdness please stand up? Whatever made you think those benign looking mortals are putty in your hands?




















I wish I remembered more about Tracer Bullet, Stupendous Man and Spiff. But it's a babel up here and beyond vague impressions of amusement at various strips, I don't recall any individual piece that left me in splits. But there two jaunty, natty strips that I have to upload..


.

These are stuffs that drollery is made of-








By the way, did you know there was actually a strip which didn't feature Calvin, Hobbes, his dad, mom, Susie...anyone. I am trying to get this collector's piece and when i do I'll upload it. I'll leave you now with my favorite strip...

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/9876/raccoon1.html

Postscript-
This is the last printed strip-


Ok, for those of you who didn't read it as folks who know poetry when they see one, are most welcome to post in your own favorite strips. Better still take this test, if you have time to kill-

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=6155057840809005322

Liverpool

In the dying minutes of the match, the heart could break. The ground was a riot of red and the last thing I remember before snapping off the TV, was Kopites holding Merseyside streamers high
against the Athenian winds.

This post is for you fans out there hollering 'handball'. The Reds don't need those bulwarks to hide their pride. Shrugging shoulders and blaming others is the credo of losers and the part of you which is forever red shall never bite the dust. We played well. We tamed the Milan brigade and the Kakas, Maldinis and Nestas were just shadows on the field. Having said that, its only fair to add that our finishing was poor and there were some slipped opportunities. Kuyt had his moments but he never emerged as a lead striker.

This post is also for you who woke up today and saw the scoreboard- 2-1. Mate, you missed some good football. Pennant was brilliant and Masch locked Kaka and gave him no space. We had an awesome ball possession and ask that Ancelotti who dominated the field more.

Now back to the fans. The season in the offing will see us move from strength to strength. You know 'You'll never walk alone' and Anfield...I still scream 'Liverpool'.

Soccer!!!!!!!

"Here's a song about a football team
The greatest team you've ever seen
A team that play total Football
They've won the league, Europe and all.

A Liverbird upon my chest
We are the men, of Shankly's best
A team that plays the Liverpool way
And wins the championship in May ..."

- -Liverbird Upon my Chest





The fields of Anfield Road might be touched with crimson before the turn of this year. The team that rose out of the ashes two years back against Milan find themselves against the Italian giants once again. With five Champions League titles the men in red have moved from strength to strength and while Ancelotti might shelve the English team as the least talented of the top EPL teams[ Man Utd. Chelsea and Liverpool] the kopites can give Athens a game to remember and talk about.

Some random facts-[ courtesy BBC SPORTS]

1. AC Milan and Liverpool's only previous meeting in European competition was the epic Champions League final of 2005, which ended in a 3-3 draw. The English club had recovered from a 3-0 half-time deficit, and eventually won 3-2 on penalties.

2. Milan have played in 13 European finals, winning eight and losing five. In the Champions Cup/Champions League, they have played in 10 previous finals, winning six and losing four.

Liverpool have played in 10 European finals, winning eight and losing two. In the Champions Cup/Champions League, the Merseysiders have only lost once in six finals.

3. Paolo Maldini will be playing in his eighth Champions Cup/Champions League final, equaling the record set by Real Madrid's "Paco" Gento in the 1950s and 1960s.

4. Liverpool can equal AC Milan's six Champions Cup/Champions League wins. Only Real Madrid (nine) have more. The Spanish record of 11 Champions Cup/Champions League titles will be equaled, regardless of which club wins the match. Both Italy and England currently have 10. If Liverpool win, Spain's record of 29 European titles will be equaled by English clubs.


Tahole it's tonight. Football gets me atavistic.

Rhapsody

Encircled my arm around and strummed with fingers since I couldn't excavate any picks in my room. Sliding up and down the strings and flexing fingers to get the chords right. I should be miffed cuz my fingers are weak making the sound come in feeble halts but guess, I am happy. It feels good when you play so close to your heart and who knows...since the hours go like minutes and one day I might play my own songs...

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

I am irritated.

I am irritated. You know those moments when you glance over your shoulders to look back at your life and nothing but a yawning nothingness stares right back at you? Heeysuss, I feel like a grinning idiot. No, seriously. Everything I write either smacks of contrivance or sounds like some verbose cliche that would make the dead asphyxiate six feets under. I am doing nothing but pilfering ideas, thoughts and what have you.

I want a dog. A nice labrador or a spaniel. A perfect cure for the mean reds.

Jottings

Its a brisk walk from Eliot Park to my house and you should'nt have much problem locating it if you walk as the crow flies. Do not stop to ask for directions for people who have no inkling where they are heading can not guide you. Come in the dying light of the day when the sagging wires cut a line across mute buildings mottled with time. The proud structures of the city trace silhouettes against a scanty greying sky and you might see a solitary songbird silently perched on the gaunt arms of a roadside tree. Or maybe the dappled wares sprawled on the street shall catch your fancy and it's riot of colours. The peanut seller who would take a second off from roasting the nuts to twitch his mustache and snap beads of sweat or maybe the hawker who would hustle with plastic toys or the ingratiating voice of some tramp. Park Street is dotted with eating joints where men wolf food the docter warned them to stay away from and little barefooted children who brazenly sing songs from the celluloids.
And as you walk by will you internalize the scene with the snippets of conversation that waft your way and maybe you could go back to your appartment and write down some verses about it. Watch them but hurry on by. Don't halt to ask for directions. for they will surely say that the place doesnt exist. And some might add that it never existed.

random thoughts.

What happens when you have this feeling that sticks like a monkey on your back? You write posts that no one reads.

I read somewhere that Dali got his inspiration from his half-somnulent state. I am half sleepy. may be I'll come up with surrealistic posts. Maybe the words will have an out- of- body experience and maybe some day someone from somewhere will somehow read this and say-'avant-garde'. And maybe there will be a prose style inspired by this humble blogger.

Have you read Catcher in the Rye? Mark Chapman was obsessed with the book. Did you know that? You did! It's a great read...just about killed me. But it saved the best for last. There is something in the mill-on-the-floss situation that gets me misty eyed in minutes. Of course it draws on[the novel i mean] but that Phoebe just redeems everything.

Holden is a lesson. I mean, he is a tiring, dissatisfied, angst ridden tenager who engages in lies and half truths without any scrupples and is as phony and superficial as the people he dislikes. And yet he wrests out all the sympathy he can...much like that despicable protagonist of Lolita. Nabokov set a trap and i walked straight into it...at least for the first few chapters. Dont ask me about the last few chapters. I never got around to reading them. I prefer my senses being assaulted by that guy playing Wilde in Wilde than going through Book II. Revolting.

What am I reading right now?Mice and Men and Nonsense Novels.

Cohen

I promise this one is going to be boring. Infact i dont intend to read it myself the second time around. For the past few days i have been reading some Cohen...what? no, dont worry...im NOT going to tell you about the various extraneous circumstances that drove me to discover Cohen[specially if they are as mundane as a google search]

So, as i was saying before getting distracted, Cohen has this wonderful conversational ton, distilled off all pedantry, artifice or anything that is not natural or entrenched in the local colour of the age that produced him. He is just like you and me, a man who came, saw and wrote, who is the godfather of gloom ... wait a minute...can we reverse time to 'and wrote'? we cant? You bet we can. and if it's the other way, just pretend,right? right!

So what was that the godfather of gloom thing...aha! I nicked it from this webpage I had been reading. It calls him the grocer of despair among other things. Thats strange. Granted, he is slightly pessimistic, now that you mention it...but "the prince of bummers"??? That can have two possible explainations-

a. I cannot read poetry. its multifarious nuances are quite lost on my obfuscated gray matter.
Works of sublimity are wasted on me.

b. I am as morbid, morose, pessimistic and bleak as the poet, so reading his works didnt make me feel its perticularly dismal or doleful[boy, am I good at being a cynic]

But these deliberations fade in comparison to what is to come. Yes, readers there is more. The article goes on to quote him-'"The heart,goes on cooking, sizzling like shish kebab." I could slit my wrist. Im begining to enjoy this write-up. quite informative. infact i get my option c.
Cohen was on substance abuse which kind of skewed him up the lonesome, joyless alley. I could quote from the article...but I am sure I have lost your interest entirely and don't want to aggravate you further.

Apologia

Attention. spelling errors galore. thank God i nurture no ambition of being the next webster.

Carmalite Creed

If that alliteration did not catch your attaintion, what i am going to scribble might. I had been hearing a lot about the Calmalite sisters for some time now and at last curiosity got the better of piety( Blogging is the modern confessional. I confess it was more out of wonder than anything else that i found myself on that rather insulated CAmac Street Church) and i got Maggie to take me there.

I don't think i owe you a setting cuz- a. this is not a novel and b. you won't give a fig either way. So i'll safely cut out all scenic details, the fact that it rained after the weatherman predicted it...will(surprise!) will not find any existence here.

The Carmalite sisters do not show their faces to anyone and lead cloistered lives inside a building attached to the church. this much i had gathered from AM ma'am's class when i was getting kicks out of looking like the well-informed student which i am not( the old trick. nodding knowingly when she spoke about the Sisters). But what i guess i found interesting was the window which was a sort of revolving structure. You just need to place whatever you want to give them and then hey, it revolves and it goes on to the other side. Now you see it and now you dont. But what you never see are the sisters. In fact I had heard some rumour that they emerge under the cover of the dark and walk about surreptitiously in the premises. But it sounded too gothic and i have shrugged it off.

We lit candles. We went to the chapel. We felt sanctified[read with a voice as deadpan as it gets]
we spoke about the evils of the world. We smilled sadly like two beatified saints who are remorse struck at the world's ruin. Then what happened? Well, I guess we forgot about it over a burger and coke in McDonalds.

PS- Ok. I lied. I forgot about it. Maggie is a believer. whatever.

Wednesday Morning Musings.

Its a quarter past seven in the morning and the whole day lies stretched infront of me like a ... hmm...running out of similes. The point is, its the second day of my 'i-shall-live-off-the-huks'[ kindly bear that sms insinuation] resolution and I have been living nearly the same way I had been trudging through life a day back. The moral of the story- You can never be contented when you are trying to be happy.
but then I am plagiarizing someone else's thoughts. Some one one of a kind and definitely not meant for mass production. If anyone from Scottish Church is logged in then they will know who I have on my mind. the name is Da Silva, Alan Da Silva. And if you are not from SCC then its about time you got a introduisîmes[that darn translator...it came up with nothing more exotic]. But thats for later. My dad has an evil grin on his face and I guess that weapon called angst does not work on him any more. Adios...I'll log back later.

Maverick

Hello, walk in through the half open door
Take a seat, surely we have met before
I am schizophrenic, I live fragmented
By halves rational, by halves demented
I distill the postwar cynicism
Spartan conflicting with hedonism
And I am not your Gibson propriety
An abridged text of contrariety
I don’t write confessional limericks
I don’t belive in real politiks
And freedom is my piety
I am learning to be placid
Comprehending you takes time
The silence burns like acid
Against the dwindling of a rhyme.
I may be bohemian
But please don’t catagorise
I have no silverspoon
Only the wealth of butterflies.
And if you think you know me
Or if we have never met
It hardly matters if u recall
Or deliberately forget.

Disparate thoughts

I have been sitting around with a blinking screen and an empty mind. Ideas flit back and forth but the trappings of language fails to give them any concrete expression. What should i scribble about? About global warming perhaps...it seems to cater to some issue of world importance. People will glance at it and say-"thats a concerned young lady." or maybe they will shrug it off-" nicked it from some environmental science book'. Maybe I should write a passionate account on the futility of life or any other contemporary philisophical problems plaguing our generation. For people like me there should be prose haiku. Twenty words and no more.